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Rural Unrest in the 1830s: the "Swing" riots

In the mid-1820s, William Cobbett toured
southern England on horseback, reporting on its cultivation, the standard of
living of its labourers, and the decline of its traditional practices such as
living-in. He claimed that new money and new urban
styles were upsetting the placid stable rural economy. In 1830 the rural workers
of the arable south and east of England rose in the Swing riots. They demanded
higher wages and an end to the threshing
machine which destroyed their winter employment. They reinforced their demands
with rick-burning, the destruction of the threshing machines and cattle-maiming
among other things.

"The home of the rick burner" - Punch 1844

Though the local gentry were often sympathetic, the
government's Special Commissions were savage and hanged nine men and transported
nearly 500 others. Cobbett insisted that Swing had its roots deep
in hunger and oppression which would be remedied only by parliamentary
reform.

The agricultural revolution, especially enclosure, upset traditional rural
society. There was a shift from the self sufficient, open field villages to
farms rented by tenant farmers employing labourers. Hiring was on a casual basis
and no payment was given if no work was done. After enclosure it became more
common for labourersto be paid by the day or week or by results, and
to be employed for short periods for harvesting, hedging, ditching, threshing,
and so on. 'Living in' disappeared. Farmhands were transformed into casual labourers
with no guarantee of work. Pay declined because of the surplus of labour. There
was a permanent surplus of agricultural labour following changes in agriculture,
the boom during the French Wars and
deflation after 1815 because of the

The social and financial gulf between farmer and labourer widened. Hiring for
less than a year meant the unemployed could not claim on the Poor
Rates. The Speenhamland System of 1795
attempted to redress the balance but became part of the framework of the labourer's
life instead of a safety net in hard times. The system encouraged low pay, and
discouraged labourers from working hard. Productivity fell, so poor relief was
cut as a deterrent - the attempt to cut it further was one of the causes of
the Swing Riots of 1830.

After 1815 the labourers'
struggle became a crisis because the boom turned into an acute and prolonged
recession. The rural labour market was swamped by demobilised servicemen. The
Speenhamland System only gave relief and guaranteed a minimum wage, so labourers
had no protection. There was no security because of short contracts and money
wages.

A
contemporary etching of a Swing riot

Labourers had several methods of protest/self-defence against landowners: they
could

protest against wage cuts and/or demand higher wages. This was the method
used by the Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1834;
it had little chance of success, given the high levels of unemployment.

claim the right to poor relief

turn to crime such as poaching

turn to terrorism

turn to machine breaking

Under-employment appears to have been a constant problem in rural
areas, and unemployment increased after 1815 although there are no reliable
statistics, and there was much regional variation.

A
labourer's cottage: contemporary illustration

The problem of pauperism was worst in the 'Swing' counties
of Sussex, Hampshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
Northamptonshire, Devon, Dorset, Huntingdonshire, Gloucestershire, Bedfordshire,
Cambridgeshire and Kent. The economic historian Sir John Clapham commented that
"the coincidence of the area in which wages were most systematically augmented
from the rates with the area of maximum enclosure is striking.". In the so-called
"Swing" counties, enclosure had taken place on a grand scale.

In the 1820s high poor rates led to increasing attempts to cut relief. Between
1815 and 1820 Poor Law expenditure was 12/10d per
capita; by 1830 it was 9/9d.
Reductions were made by making the Poor Law a deterrent
and by stopping people asking for relief. This created a hatred of the Poor
Law but it is also noticeable that between 1824 and 1830, rural crime rates
increased by 30% - mainly poaching and food thefts. Pauperism, desperation and
discontent were almost universal in agricultural areas. East Anglia was likely
to be explosive because this area pioneered the 'new' farming of the Agricultural
Revolution and the status of the labourers had been completely transformed into
short-contract wage-earners. Although arson was not a normal method of rural
agitation, it became common in East Anglia along with poaching

The amount of available work and the level of prices correlated with the state
of the harvest. If this is taken into account, then unrest in 1830 was highly
likely:

1827: good harvest.

1828: as good a summer as any year since 1814, weather wise, but
a poor harvest.

A number of other events also occurred in 1830 which might have increased the
likelihood of unrest:

the death of George IV and the accession of William IV who was more liberal
in outlook. The accession of a new monarch required a General
Election in Britain at this time so political grievances were highlighted.

July/August - there was revolution in France when Charles X was replaced
by Louis Philippe, the 'Citizen King'. According to a contemporary comment,
"When Paris sneezes, the whole of Europe catches cold": almost invariably
if there was political unrest in France, it could be found elsewhere in Europe.

August - Belgian revolt against Dutch control

November - the Whigs were returned as
the government under the premiership of Earl
Grey. They had a political platform of 'peace, retrenchment and reform'
which increased the likelihood of parliamentary
reform.

November - Polish revolt

News of these various events were spread by word of mouth and agricultural
labourers were more than likely to hear of them, particularly the election campaigns
in England. Local issues which led to riots were:

a dislike of the social control exercised by Anglican
ministers in rural areas. Joseph Arch commented
on this in his autobiography later in his life.

THE RISING

The rioters used a range of methods including machine breaking; arson; threatening
letters; wages meetings; attacks on Justices of the Peace and overseers of the
poor; riotous assembly; publishing and distributing handbills and posters; and
'robbery'. The riots began in Kent and persisted there the longest. There were
five phases to the Kent riots:

fires (June)

machine breaking (began 28th August)

wages meetings and radical agitation (October)

wages meetings and machine breaking (early November)

fires, tithe riots and machine breaking (end of November)

Machine breaking was a new feature of rural unrest. Many threshing machines
were smashed in this "rural war" on Saturday nights after the inns had
closed: about one hundred threshers were smashed in east Kent between 28 August
and the end of October, by gangs of between twenty and fifty breakers. There
does not seem to have been any political grievance because the men demanded
only higher wages. They wanted a minimum of

2/3d per day in winter (13/6d weekly)

2/6d per day in summer (15/- weekly)

The average wage in the Swing counties was only 8/4d per week. The labourers
also asked for a reduction of rents and tithes.

Areas which were liable to riot may be identified as follows:

cereal growing areas where low wages were paid to the labourers

recently enclosed villages

larger villages where people were more anonymous

manufacturing villages, particularly those with a high percentage of shoemakers

villages with a high ratio of labourers to farmers

The aims of the rioters were remarkably similar throughout the 'Swing' counties.
The men demanded a minimum wage, the end of rural unemployment and tithe and
rent reductions. Farmers supported the labourers in the two latter demands.

The leaders of the riots were often craftsmen and the led were predominantly
labourers - often paupers on poor relief.

Rioters were usually young men, many of them married, therefore they may
be deemed to be stable and respectable

Arsonists often had a grudge against the victim

Most of the rioters were of good character - not the criminal element. Their
conduct usually was fairly civilised.

Arson resulted in damage of

£100,000

industrial machine breaking (Luddism)

£ 13,000

agricultural machine breaking (Swing)

£ 8,000

riot damage

£ 600

TOTAL

£121,600

In 1833 His Majesty's Poor Law
Commissioners produced a report on the
agricultural disturbances on 1830 which attributed the riots to the distress
caused by low wages and the demoralisation produced by the Speenhamland system.
Since these men wished to introduce new legislation for the relief of poverty,
their comments perhaps should be taken with some scepticism.

The riots probably died a natural death, so were not really affected by either
government or local action. There was little or no use of the brand new police
force which had been established by
Peel in 1829. The government's attention
was diverted into other areas such as the General Election, urban unrest and
the revolution in France. Consequently the main onus of dealing with the rioters
fell on local JPs who had divided loyalties. These men had to enforce the law
and the penalties were severe for those who were convicted of the offences.
The JPs then had to live in the communities after the trials and sentences.
It is not surprising, then, to see how many men were acquitted.

There were 1,976 trials in total. Of the men tried, sentencing was as follows:

Sentenced to death

252

Commuted to life transportation

233

Executed

19

Transported

505

Imprisoned

644

Fined

7

Whipped

1

Acquitted/bound over

800

The 'Swing' riots were the first large-scale demonstration of
agricultural labourers' strength, although outbreaks were localised. Agitation
continued, especially after the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. There were no agricultural
trade unions because jobs and therefore homes were at stake. The 'Swing' riots
did influence the passing of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and the 1836 Tithe
Commutation Act, but wages and conditions did not improve.

Average wages for farm labourers rose from 8/11d per week in 1795 to 9/6d per
week in 1850, but real wages (i.e. how far the money went) declined. Agricultural
labourers continued to be the worst paid, worst fed and worst housed of all
the working communities

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